Prompts Gone Mad!

These are just for today!

My God.

And every one of them is great, of course. I want to do them all. I realize they don’t all have to be done today, but my own “rain” inspirational thingie is already 4 days old and goes well with blustery fog during the fervent breakup over the kitchen remodel, or whatever.

Ack. Wasting time! Off to search my photos for a colorful square circle…

An Immodest Proposal

Let your writing take center stage! You work hard on your fiction and poetry, so don’t bury it down the screen after posting 27 lines of copypasta text from a prompt host. Why do people do this? Habit?

Stop. 😀

This is the order your fiction or poetry post should take.

1. Title (obviously).

2. Picture.

3. Your original writing (including any linked words going back to a prompt host).

4. A marker showing your piece has ended if you’re going to say something else. Write “The End” or put “***” or similar.

5. If needed, a short phrase linking back to one or more prompt hosts (for example, “Tuesday Monster Prompts”).

That’s it! There’s no reason to copypasta the prompt host’s entire post into your writing. It clutters up your post and takes away from your new work. Why should readers scroll past a huge pile of rules to get to your poem or story? By that time, the mood between the picture and your words has been broken. Even if you post the picture later, why bore your readers with this gobble upfront? Your writing is the star attraction!

If your work has inspired another blogger to try the prompt, great! They can then click through your linked word or phrase to the prompt host and read the rules there, download the pic, and copy the link. Then the host gets a visit. You don’t need to de facto become the new prompt host by reposting everything.

I realize I’m being bossy, but this is actually the right way, so. 🙂👍🏻🎉

Spring Cleaning!

I’ve been periodically unfollowing people this past month. 😱

I have a huge number of blogs in my follow list, and while a vast number are inactive (especially those I followed way back when), my feed is getting unwieldy. Now that I’m doing two prompts, I’d like to focus on certain groups of bloggers. Ooh, rude! I know, I know. But I only have 24 hours in each day and have recently rediscovered the joys of a good night’s sleep. 💤

These are the bloggers I’ll be focusing on:

1. Those who comment here.

2. Those who participate in my prompts.

3. Those who inspire me to write more by posting their own great prompts, poetry, discussions, etc.

If I’ve mistakenly unfollowed you, please speak up. I did hastily unfollow a few folks earlier in the month, but then I saw they were participating, so I refollowed them. Oopsy! 😜

Thanks for understanding. 😀💖👍🏻

Thursday Thoughts

It’s no secret that I’ve been getting tons of writing inspiration from the incredibly talented Teresa of The Haunted Wordsmith. She’s been so generous with her time in contributing wonderful prompts to the WP community. Starting next week, she plans to cut back on some of that however and focus her blog toward more of her own writing, which I look forward to reading.

There are a lot of prompts around, which is great, but I find that I’m most drawn to the ones that inspire me to write poetry. These are usually pictures or words and phrases. I do enjoy writing the occasional flash fiction, particularly fantasy and sci-fi, or humor, but on the whole, I’d rather write more poetry. And, not to be critical, I don’t feel terribly motivated by the handcuff type requirements… I just want to write what the spirit moves me, without regard to any word count or structure. I like my series of 100-word pieces, but I feel I’m done with that phase of writing (note to self: add tab). Every so often, I’m in the mood to do some haiku.

Anyway, my “prompt week” looks like this:

Saturday: Linda’s SOCS
Sunday: Jim’s Song Lyrics
Monday: Laura’s Music Challenge; The Weekly Smile
Tuesday: Fandango’s Provocative Question
Wednesday: Patricia’s “In Other Words;” Linda’s One-Liner
Thursday: ???
Friday: ???

Of course, things pop up randomly in my feed throughout the week from various sources that I may or may not feel like using as motivation. I sometimes answer lists of questions about myself or relate an event. Be that as it may, I’m thinking that Thursday could be be a good day for me to post something to inspire myself to write a poem or flash piece and why not share?

What if I begin a weekly Thursday prompt to motivate myself along with any others who may feel adrift without a creativity nudge? My idea is to post a picture from a free photo library along with a line from a song. People can do whatever they wish with it… poem, flash fiction, combo prompt, nothing, anything. It’s not about me visiting and commenting, though I will try as time allows, but about creative inspiration.

On a semi-related note, I’ve looked up the two names I like to use online and I see they have not been used as hashtags, as far as I can tell. So, I’m going to start using them, here and there, and it’d be cool if people who play along with the prompt do too. It’s pretty meaningless, but whatever.

#lightm0tifs

#p0eticlicense

I’m going to do a test post tonight after this one goes, but unless someone violently objects, starting next Thursday I’ll have the prompts scheduled at 4:00AM Pacific time, same as I have my alphablog posts, which end Tuesday. 🎉

Comments?

Blogsturbation

It just occurred to me to follow myself. I’m sure that must be legal in California. And now look! 😀👀🎉 I have finally zoomed up to 800 WP followers, woohoo! I’m in the big leagues now, baby! Yeehaw!

Yeah, yeah. I know some of you have 1000, 2000, 8000, whatever. But plz remember that I stagnated here for a decade posting sad song lyrics and complaining about dating sites to around 12 people via email plus my Facebook friends. It’s only recently since I dumped FB that I began interacting with the WP writing community.

Love you all! ❤️

(Hope this is okay for the Weekly Smile.)

A2Z Observations

We’re 10 days into April now, marking a third of the journey through my first A2Z bloggery challenge. Now, to be honest, I didn’t join in to get motivated to blog daily, since I do that already. I joined because I thought it would be fun to have a daily themed post.

Well, it’s not. 😱

Yes. Sacrilege. Allow me to pontificate. It’s a burden to write the posts that I’ve planned out on my list. It feels like work, bleh. It’s not fun like the other posts are, the genre challenges, the impulsive poetry, etc.

Another issue is that people aren’t responding to the romance novel reviews much, except to drop likes. I thought I had more romance readers here who would be interested in these books. Guess not. Maybe if I reviewed something “rapey” like The Flame and the Flower I’d get a conversation going haha.

But people are responding to the romantic comedy movie reviews, so I’m modifying my list to include more movies and fewer books, except for the reviews I’ve already scheduled. I’d rather go for the reliable over the uncertain, and it makes me a little sad to have a post with likes and no comments. Dunno why people can’t extrapolate things I say about romance novels into general discussions about other books and writing too, but like whatever. We’ll just focus on movies. 🙄

Further, with my regular newsfeed still overflowing with favorite bloggers posting great stuff, I don’t have time to wander to the A2Z page and check out new peeps. I’m already much too busy with blogging and working and everything else. That “make connections” part of A2Z is a bust for me, unfortunately. I don’t know how I used to have any spare time. Where did it go?

I think in the future if I do A2Z again it will be with a much more casual approach, not a theme/list. This feels way too much like actual work. 😝

Wednesday Wittering

Since everyone is announcing the things they are blogdoing, I thought I would too. I made a new tab! Ooh, yes. Biggie changes on the old Light Motifs II. It’s a poetry tab and I stuck 24 links on to poems what I like. My own poems, I mean. Now, it would be nice if people could go over there and like my poetry page so it’s not all naked. But if everyone is too busy doing whatever, I get it. Just remember all the times I liked your things and don’t feel guilty. 🙄

I also changed my other tab to link to my fave flash fiction stories what I posted. Now, you don’t have to bother liking that page, since it already has lots of likes from when it had sumpin else on there. I guess that’s cheating really… to change a thing people liked into a different thing after they liked it. Gosh, I’ll probably lose sleep over that. 😂

Since I feel all blissful from organizing my stuff under tabs in this way, I’m going to do more! I’m planning to create a series tab, for links to my sets of themed stories; a dating tab for my sad and funny dating stories; a tab for Gatsby; etc. Actually, I feel quite penitent for neglecting this area of my blog for so long. I haven’t made it easy for peeps to find things. 😢

On second thought, maybe I should make series a subset of flash. After all, my stories are really all flash fiction, by definition, and there is no reason to drench my poor blog in a veritable flood of tabs. I always get so carried away! 🤪

So, here’s a thing. I try not to think about certain times in my life too much unless I’m deliberately calling up an emotion for writing purposes, and even then I have to be careful. But the blog is tricky. Reading some of that older poetry was painful ~ I know what motivated it. I know why I had the need to articulate certain concepts the way I did with the words I chose.

Even worse though are the blanks in blogtime, where “nothing” appears. Those weeks weren’t always blank. Some of them had poetry that was too painful to leave up, or rants or confessions or stories I decided were too personal to have online forever (yes, I realize they may have been archived or screenshotted by someone).

When I pass through the ghost weeks, I’m glad I don’t have to confront whatever unhappy event occurred… but yet I know it was there.

Something was there. 😶

~*~

Opposites Attract Challenge: April 3

My OCD Made Me Do It

Nobody cares, but I am constantly going over my A2Z list of romcoms and romance novels for the blogging challenge next month. I began with Alex & Emma, as I said, and already wrote and scheduled my post. I’ve also written and scheduled other reviews, but they’re different from what I originally intended. 😱

Forex, I said I was doing Bet Me by Jenny Crusie for B, but I didn’t ~ I don’t have Bet Me. In fact, I have no book by Jennifer. How can this be? I talk about her all the time! Welcome to Temptation inspired me to begin writing my first romance novel. But nope. Nothing on my shelves, physical or virtual. I’ve read all her books though and could review them, if I wanted to. But I’m thinking I might just review books I haven’t mentioned here.

I wanted to do every other letter ~ movie, book, movie, book, etc. Except I already messed that up because I got so excited about a new book I bought that began with a U. I read it, wrote a review, scheduled the post. Derp. That’s April 24, which should have been a movie day. Annoying.

Not every letter is the first letter of the first word, and I sort of think that’s cheating but like whateverrrrr. I’m reading an F book now (no, not Faking It ~ I just said I have no Crusies), and then I need a G movie. I have The Goodbye Girl, but there’s a problem with that. One, I don’t really like The Goodbye Girl, and all my reviews are positive ones; and two, it’s a crappy remake that doesn’t even have what’s their faces. So, I’m going with My Big Fat Greek Wedding and using Greek for the G.

I don’t care! It counts as a G. Shut up.

I’m also using first names of authors as letters when I’m desperate to shoehorn in a particular book that I lurve. Pffft. Same with a couple actresses. Sue me. 😛

The alphabet is stressful! Is anyone else finding this to be the case, or just me? It’s probably just me, huh?

Which letter are people having the most trouble with? Mine was N, oddly enough. I just said the hell with it and bought a new book for my Kindle that’s not part of the KU program.

Oh yeah… did I mention I joined Kindle U again for this? Well, I did. 🙄

Here Comes the Sun

Fandango said I could grab his Sunshine Questions, so I am. I’m not in the mood to write a prompt story about an apocalyptic closet, which was my other idea.

If you could start your blog all over again, how would it be different, if at all, from your current blog?

I’d be completely anonymous and never reference anything about my real life, so I could indulge in all sorts of fantastical writings. And loads more bitching. I don’t bitch nearly enough, imo. Of course then I’d get some Primary Colors type detective figuring out who I am because I mention cupcakes one day. Bah!

What quote or saying do people spout but which is complete BS?

Anything about counting blessings, smiling, looking on the bright side, having a positive mental attitude, etc. Those things are hard-wired and it makes things worse for those of us who are not able to view life that way to constantly be told that our sadness/anxiety is our own fault. If you can’t be empathetic, then go smell some fucking flowers and leave us alone.

What is the dumbest way you’ve been injured?

Oh geez. So many dumbs. Probably trying to open a Snapple with a steak knife and slicing my finger so badly I needed stitches.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve read or seen this week?

Probably something about a crocodile eating a snake eating a snake eating a rat ~ oh wait! I’m confusing that with politics. Never mind.

What was the last picture you took with your smartphone (if you have one, or with your camera if you don’t).

I have a question for anyone still reading: whatever happened to that Wednesday prompt from Patricia? It was one word and we wrote 5 lines about it. Is this another one of my glitches, that I’m not allowed to see it anymore? I’ve written to WP about my issues, but we know how that will go.

Thanks!

The Glitches Go On…

I just got notified by email of a new follower (someone whom I thought was already following me), so I popped over to the app to check my list.

Things simply are not going well for me lately. 😢